John Deere manufactures a Max Emerge Drawn Conservation Flex-fold planter. The heart of the John Deere planter is a metering unit which retains a circular rotatable seed disk that separates the interior of the metering unit into two chambers, one on each side of the disk. The seed disks employed in the machine have a plurality of holes, with the centers thereof spaced to define a circle with its center at the center of the disk and having a radius a little less than the radius of the disk. A vacuum is drawn in the chamber formed on one side of the disk and seeds are introduced into the chamber on the opposite side of the disk. The diameter of the holes in the seed disks are sized such that, when operating properly, the vacuum will draw one seed against the aperture of each hole in the disk and retain the seed as the disk rotates to a position above a seed chute, at which point the disk moves away from the vacuum chamber and the seed falls away from the disk and into the chute to be planted.
The planter is intended for use with many types of seed, including sunflower, cotton, soybean, sorghum, sugar beets, popcorn, sweet corn, and corn seed (feed corn seed). Each type of seed has a different size and configuration and the planter is, therefore, provided with a plurality of seed disks, which each of the seed disks having a different configuration of holes through which the vacuum is drawn to move seeds from the input to the chute.
The manual for the 7200 Max Emerge, 16 row, narrow flex-fold planter, for example, describes and depicts thirteen different seed disks. According to the manual, the seed size for certain grains, such as corn seed, vary widely. The manual recommends disk H136478 for the smallest sized corn seed, recommends disk A43215 for medium sized corn seed, and recommends disk A50617 for large sized corn seed.
Another variable for the John Deere planter is the vacuum which is drawn to retain the seeds against the apertures of the seed disk. For corn seed, the vacuum level, expressed “inches of water,” ranges from three as a minimum to thirteen as a maximum, as shown in a chart depicted in the manual and generally reconstructed in FIG. 15. Two optional pieces of equipment are provided, the use of which is recommended under certain planting situations and is not recommended in other situations, namely a double eliminator and knockout assembly. The double eliminator is intended to prevent the depositing of two seeds in one planting site or hole, and the knockout assembly pushes out seeds that become wedged in the vacuum holes. The configuration of vacuum holes is different for each seed disk and John Deere does not provide a double eliminator or a knockout assembly for each one of its seed disks.
The proper operation of the John Deere planter, therefore, requires the selection of the appropriate seed disk for use with the size and type of seed to be planted, the appropriate adjustments to the vacuum, and in some cases the installation of one or both a optional double eliminator and a knockout assembly. It is also recommended that the machine be monitored during its use and that the strength of the vacuum be adjusted if the machine is found to be under planting or over planting seed.
The machine is considered to be operating at 100% efficiency if it will plant 100 seeds in 100 holes. Where the machine plants 98 seeds in one hundred holes, it is considered to be operating at 98% efficiency and where is planting 102 seeds in every 100 holes (a second seed into each of two holes), the machine is considered to be operating at 102% efficiency. A farmer will consider a machine operating at 95% or at 105% to be unacceptably inefficient and in either case will be required to adjust the vacuum or replace the seed disks of the machine to improve its efficiency. The satisfactory operating range for such machines is between 99% and 101% efficiency.
The planters manufactured by John Deere are adapted to plant from four to thirty one rows simultaneously with a hopper retaining seed, a seed disk and a double eliminator setting for each row to be planted by the machine. If the operator changes the size of the seed being planted such that the machine, as it is then configured, will on longer maintaining the required efficiency, he must stop his tractor, change the parts within the metering units, adjust the double eliminator and adjust the vacuum for the machine. It can take a farmer an hour or more to reconfigure his machine to accommodate a change in seed size.
Ideally each row of a planter will plant between 99% and 101% efficiency. Generally, farmers having a John Deere planter would be satisfied if their machines will plant corn seed at between 95% and 105% efficiency, but such rates are difficult to maintain, or even achieve because the temperamental nature of the metering units. Many farmers will set the warning alarms on their machine to sound when the efficiency of the planter falls outside the range of 90% to 110% because beyond that range the loss of crop at the planting stage is intolerable. When the machine operates beyond that range the operator will stop the machine and reconfigure the metering units as described above.
The difficulties of maintaining proper efficiency are accentuated in the case of corn seed, which is one of the major grains for which the John Deere planter is employed. As shown in FIG. 16, corn seed ranges in size from as small as 3,100 seeds per pound to as a maximum of 900 seeds per pound. Although it would be desirable for a farmer to obtain seed which is of all the same size, as a practical matter, he must deal with seeds of varying size. As previously stated, John Deere offers three different seed disks for use in planting corn seed, one disk for each of three ranges of seed size.
John Deere has many thousands of Max Emerge planters, many of which are now being employed to plant corn seed. Farmers have found that, with respect to the planting of corn seed, the John Deere planter can best be described as temperamental. Even with frequent vacuum adjustments and the changing of seed disks, farmers have not been able to maintain the efficiency of such planters within the desired 99% to 101% range and have been forced to accept performance in the 90% to 95% range. It would, therefore, be desirable to provide a kit for modifying the metering unit of the John Deere planter to improve the efficiency with which the planter will plant corn seed.